


Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

by mintpearlvoice



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone Is Alive, F/M, Family Bonding, Gen, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mustafar, Sith Alchemy, Sith Shenanigans, Skywalker Family Feels, canon divergence: the jedi order don't suck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-03-18 10:19:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13679724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintpearlvoice/pseuds/mintpearlvoice
Summary: In one reality, Anakin Skywalker is a husband, father, and decorated Jedi Knight.In another, he's his own worst nightmare, and has killed or tortured everyone he loves.And thanks to Sith mind-control, he no longer knows which is the truth.





	1. Visiting Day

It was visiting day at the Jedi Temple, and the force hummed with joy. As the families made their way into the garden, padawans and younglings alike broke from their groups and flung themselves into the arms of people they hadn’t seen in an entire month.

“You’ve gotten so big-“

“Look! My braid has another bead!”

Anakin Skywalker leaned against a tree. Waiting. Watching.

He’d first met his former Padawan on a visiting day; sensing a single discordant note in the bubbles of happiness and love all around him, he’d followed it with his instincts to an alcove framed by willow trees where a little Togruta was curled up on a bench, crying as if her heart would break.

“Hey, kid.” He sat down beside her. “Something wrong?”

She scowled up at him, big blue eyes filled with tears. “Leave me alone.”

Anger came from fear. Kids didn’t cry unless something was wrong. “You’re getting snippy with me, but as a Jedi Knight, I’m supposed to help people in trouble. And you look like you’re having a pretty bad time.”

She pulled herself into a tiny ball, but held his gaze. “They’re dead, okay? All of them. I don’t have any family. No one cares about me.”

“That’s not true.” And then, in a typical impulsive move, one his instincts knew was right: “How would you feel about becoming my Padawan?”

Now he spotted her across the temple grounds, lekku twitching excitedly as she talked to her best friend Barriss Offee.

 

And then he saw Padme. She wore a light, airy dress that seemed to float around her body, and her hair was down and lioness-long.

“Anakin…”

He dropped into an exaggerated posture of deference and grinned up at her. “Lady Chancellor. Do you have any orders for me?”

Everyone in the temple could probably feel the unconditional love and pure joy that radiated from him right now, even through his shields. He didn’t care.

One of the five Chancellors of Republic space, the woman he’d loved since his family was rescued from slavery during his childhood, the most beautiful woman in the universe, the mother of his children…

“Come with me,” she whispered, drawing him to his feet, and they took off deep into the forest area of the garden.”

She pushed him against a tree, touched his racing heart.

“I’ve missed you so much. Every day. Your smile, your eyes… I never get tired of seeing you again,” he managed to say. Which was an achievement, because every time he looked at his gorgeous, perfect wife he sort of forgot how to talk. That was how a thoughtful explanation of how his time on Tatooine had affected him had turned into “SAND IS ITCHY.”

The wind tousled her long, dark hair. “Kiss me, Anakin. You know we don’t have much time.”

“MAMA!!! MAMA!!!”

“MAmamamamamamamamama-“

The shrieking twins burst through the foilage and launched themselves at their parents. With a gesture, Anakin levitated both, and they burst into giggles as Padme caught them in her arms.

Luke and Leia were almost five, and they already had lots of personality. Luke was usually the quiet, sweet one, but he could whine with the best of them when he didn’t get to go out for ice cream. With regards to Leia, everyone at the temple joked that she would someday inherit Obi-Wan’s title of The Negotiator. She could wrap anyone around her little finger, or argue them into a standstill, and Force did she know it.

“We missed you, Mama,” Luke said at the same time as Leia shouted, “We did show and tell and mine was the bestest.”

“That’s great. I’m so glad to see you both.”

“Daddy,” Luke said, reaching out.

“Hey, you saw me yesterday. Your mom wants to spend some time with you, too.” As he took the boy, he exaggerated a stumble and plopped down on a tree stump. “Wow! You’re getting so-o-o big!”

Usually that could make him laugh. Instead he clutched onto his father’s robe and looked at him seriously with those stare-into-your-soul blue eyes. “Don’t go away, Daddy. Don’t want you to go.”

“Hey, kiddo.” He kissed his son’s forehead, trying to soothe Luke’s tremors of fear in the Force. “I appreciate you sharing your feelings with me, but I’m not going anywhere. Everything’s going to be all right.”

“Skyguy? Anidala? You back here?”

“Hello, Ahsoka!” Padme called. “We’re here, and so are the twins.”

Both kids were so fussy. Normally they were excited to see ‘Soka, as they called her. Leia buried her face in her mother’s chest, and Luke clung even tighter.

Ahsoka looked serious. “The Council just gave us a new mission. There’s rumors of-“ She hesitated, looking at Padme and the twins. “Sith activity,” she mouthed, and then speaking normally, “in the Atravis sector.”

Anakin nodded seriously before turning to his children. “Hey, guess what? You guys get to have your mom all to yourself on Visiting Day.”

Leia popped her thumb in her mouth, something she hadn’t done since she was two. Anakin tried to disentangle his son and give him to his mother, but Luke burst into noisy tears, and Leia started crying as well.

“NO! NO! NO!” Luke shouted, while Leia just yelled, going for volume over coherency.

“It’s going to be OK, Luke. I promise I’ll take good care of your dad. Even when he does irresponsible, crazy things and gets into trouble.” Asoka patted his hair.

“That’s right,” Padme said calmly. “Your father is a strong, incredible man. He’ll do whatever it takes to come home to us.” She rocked from foot to foot, soothing both twins, and Anakin couldn’t help staring lovingly at how good she was with the children.

“I’ll see you all soon,” he promised, before turning to his Padawan. “Okay. Brief me and we can get cleared for takeoff.”

They took off at a run through the forest.

Padme watched them longingly.

“Daddy,” Leia whispered, burying a chubby little hand in her mother’s hair and kissing her cheek.

“Don’t worry, little one. He’ll come home soon, just like he promised.” Yet even as she made this vow to her young children, Padme couldn’t suppress a tremor of fear. For the first time in hundreds of years of peace, there were Sith in the galaxy. The Jedi Order, and the man she loved more than life, were in danger.


	2. Captured!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A simple scouting mission goes bad fast. Padme struggles to find balance.

Anakin and Ahsoka leapt out of hyperspace in the middle of the system.  
"Hey, Snips," Anakin shouted with just a glance at the viewport. "Hold onto your montrails, ‘cause we've got company."  
"I have a bad feeling about this, Skyguy," she replied, slipping into the copilot's seat.  They were surrounded by Sith ships.  
Anakin swerved and dove through the field of enemy fighters as Ashoka blasted down every one she could. "There's too many," she whispered, her lekku drooping.  
"Follow my lead. we're going to be fine."  
Just then, the ship lurched and jolted. A ship bigger than all the rest had just exploded out of hyperspace and locked onto them with a tractor beam.  
"Whoever's on that ship, I don't want you falling into their hands. Go to the escape pod- hurry," he commanded.  
Her mouth dropped open. "Are you crazy? Master- Anakin- I'm not leaving you!"  
"Ahsoka," he said calmly, his gaze never leaving hers as he used their training bond to slice through the mental shields he'd helped her build. "Repeat after me: I will leave this ship via the escape pod, land on the nearest safe inhabited planet, and send a distress beacon to the Jedi order."  
She clenched her fists, trying to fight back. But it was like trying to hold water in cupped hands. "I... I will..."  
"...leave this ship via the escape pod, land on the nearest safe inhabited planet, and send a distress beacon to the Jedi order." His eyes glowed. She was only dimly aware of repeating his words, of launching the escape pod with only seconds to spare. The next thing she knew, she was stumbling out of the pod onto rain-sodden ground, her cheeks wet with tears.  
  
  
_My husband. Captured by Sith._  
The Sith are back, and they've captured my husband. What if the love of her life was gone forever- if her children would never see their father again? She couldn't begin to imagine how she'd bear her many responsibilities without him beside her.  
Five minutes ago, she'd been filling in for Anakin, playing a board game with the orphaned younglings. It was adorable how their faces knitted in concentration when they tried to influence the dice to land on a certain facet.  
Then a solemn Obi-Wan and tearful Ahsoka had called her aside into an antechamber and quietly delivered the worst news of her life.  
"He's not- he can't be-" in her mind, he was still safe at the Temple. She'd see him in a few moments. How could the world be otherwise?  
"He's not dead," Ahsoka finished firmly, leaning across the table to cover Padme's trembling hands with her own. "We'd feel it. We'd know- right, Obi-Wan?"  
"We all would," he agreed.  
"Even me? Anakin always says I have about as much Force ability as a potted plant..."  
"You love him," Obi-Wan said solemnly. "Love matters- to the Force, and to its users. There would be no Jedi order without love."  
"Love can ignite the stars," Ahsoka whispered, clearly quoting some fragment of Jedi doctrine.  
"So he's not dead. That means we need to find him. What are we going to do?"  
"Patrols will search every corner of the Galaxy for a ship that matches the one Anakin was taken aboard. We will find him. I promise."  
  
But over a year later, it was getting so much harder to keep hope. It had been a particularly hard week at the senate. She and one of her fellow Chancellors, Bail Organa, were trying to arrange a shipment of food to a planet whose own agriculture had been devastated by a crop plague. But Senator Palpatine had used economic kickbacks to gather a contingent arguing that instead, they should spend more money fighting smugglers- even though draconian tariffs he himself had sponsored had caused the recent expansion of smuggling in the first place!  
And then, he’d had the nerve to smile at her in a patronizing way and suggest that she wasn’t thinking clearly because of her husband’s disappearance. That was just a blatant distraction from the moral bankruptcy of his policies, and she couldn’t believe some of her colleagues had fallen for it. Her head ached, and she felt overwhelmingly exhausted. If Anakin was here, he’d climb into bed with her and hold her until she could breathe again.

Instead she was alone, the universe overwhelming.  
“I want a lightsaber.” That was Luke, whining at top pitch.  
His grandmother: “I'll make you a toy lightsaber. Would that be okay?”  
“It's not the same!” That was Leia.  
Luke, his whine ascending to something that Padme would have deemed beyond the capacity of mortal lungs: “But it's not the same! You can't slice people open with it!”  
Leia, after a moment of contemplation: “Grandmother, why doesn't Mr. Organa's tummy go back in when I press on it? Why isn't it flat like Da's?”  
Luke, hoarse from screaming, but still fascinated: “Yesterday he came over and we went swimming and he was like a jiggly potato.”

The door creaked open, and Padme winced.

“Mom? Will you get us a lightsaber?”  
“Your mother isn't feeling well right now. She's taking a nap. But if the two of you play quietly until dinner, when the numbers on the time piece say six three zero, I'll see what I can do.”  
“Everyone feels much more better after a good nap,” Leia agreed in her typical I-know-everything tone. “Come on, Luke, let's go see if we can get Threepio to put our play tent on and then he can be a big nasty Hutt and then we can play escaping!”  
They ran off, giggling, and Padme buried her head deeper under the pillow.  
She knew she needed to be strong. To be the mother they needed. But she couldn't bring herself to get out of bed.  
_Anakin, where are you? I can't do this alone..._  
The door opened again, quiet and gentle this time. "Padme? How are you feeling?"  
"Tired. I miss him." It was all she had the strength to whisper.  
"Ani is alive, sweetling." Shmi stroked her daughter-in-law's hair, and Padme leaned into the gentle touch. "Wherever in the universe he is, he loves and misses you just as much as you miss him. And I'd bet anything he's worried sick about you too." She uncovered the tray she’d been carrying: porridge with rosewater and cardamom and raisins and roasted walnuts. “You know, I heard about what happened today at the senate. Honestly, I never liked that Palpatine. You wouldn’t know- you were still on Naboo- but when Anakin was younger, he was always sniffing around the temple, trying to talk to him alone. Of course, I had some very stern words with him. Why don’t you eat up and we can start planning a strategy to get him exiled to Wild Space?”

After the birth of the twins, when Padme had been deathly ill, all she wanted was her mother-in-law’s cooking. The smell of cardamom was still the only thing that could make her stomach rumble when she felt like she didn’t have the strength for anything else.  
Padme knew she was being manipulated. Blatantly. But she let it work, taking the bowl and spoon.  
“Come on, eat up. I won't have you wasting away on me. The way you two carry on, you'll end up with another pair of pots in the kiln the moment he gets back.”


	3. The Nightmare Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A vision leads the Jedi Order to Mustafar.

In the dream, Padme-as-Anakin struggled along a rocky path across a lake of lava. A dark-robed Sith strode ahead of them, and alchemical droids watched their every step.  
"I'll never turn to the Dark Side," Padme/Anakin growled, trying to breathe through the pain of the Force binder handcuffs cutting into their wrists. "Never!"  
The Sith laughed; low, resonant, somehow familiar. "In a different world, Anakin, you might have. Imagine- without your mother, without your mentors, without the love of your wife. Who are you, I wonder, stripped of the attachments that define you?"  
The palace looms before them like an artificial volcano, emanating pure dark energy. Anakin/Padme yell in protest, but the mere act of taking a breath has them suffocating on the planet's fumes, helpless as the droids shove them across the malevolent threshold of death-  
Padme wakes up screaming and gasping for breath in the darkness of her chamber. Instantly six hidden doors flew open. The room was filled with handmaidens, blasters at the ready, and Ashoka sprinted in, igniting her lightsaber.  
"I'm fine," she managed to gasp. "Only a nightmare."  
Sabe put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. "Do you want something to help you fall back to sleep?"  
"Wait," the Togruta commanded. "Dreams are important. What was yours?"  
"I was Anakin," Padme whispered, trembling. "I was on a horrible planet, lava and fumes... the heat hurt my lungs every time I breathed. A Sith was taunting me, telling me I'd fall to the dark side. I felt so helpless."  
"Hmm. I think there may be a lava planet in the Atravis sector. If he's there, it's possible the lava could have hidden human activity from our scanners."  
"You think maybe I've had a vision?"  
"I have a good feeling about this, Padme. Go back to sleep. I'll meet with Obi-Wan and have news by the morning."

 

“Mustafar,” Obi-Wan blurted five hours later, lifting his bleary head from a datapad.

Ahsoka, who totally hadn’t fallen asleep on a beanbag chair in the corner of the archive study chamber, blinked at him blearily. “Who’s a Mustafar?”

“It’s a lava world… a ruin torn between two gas giants, full of cataclysmic eruptions. There was a great battle on Mustafar some two thousand years ago. It’s the sort of dark, dangerous place a Sith would love.”  
  
  
The Jedi Order didn't know how many Sith were going to be on Mustafar, so they planned an enormous rescue mission.  
When Padme found out, she demanded to come. "In my dream, Anakin was frightened. He'll want me- he'll want to see me."  
"You're not a Jedi, Padme," Obi-Wan said. "I won't put you in danger-" and then he ducked, because Padme had fired two blaster shots an inch away from his head.  
"I'm trained as a Naboo handmaiden, the most dangerous warriors on my planet. Is that good enough for you?"  
It was agreed that Padme would be on the rescue mission, mostly because she would have found a way to come along anyway.

 

Three days later, twenty Jedi ships jumped out of hyperspace to orbit Mustafar. Droid algorithms had pinpointed the only location of solid rock big enough to house a structure like the one in Padme’s dream, so that was where the ship landed.

“Stay close, both of you,” Obi-Wan warned Ahsoka and Padme as they crept closer to the palace. “We don’t know how many Sith there are, or what kind of weapons they have.”

Ahsoka twirled her two lightsabers and entered a battle meditation state. She reached out with her mind, searching for dark energy. But she felt nothing, only the strong Force presence of the Jedi Knights and Padawans who were waiting behind her, ready to provide backup at her slightest request.

“Obi-Wan. What if they’ve moved on?” Even as she whispered it, she feared the possibility. To be so close to finding her master, her best friend, and then being back at square one again…

They crept up to the door, which had a heavy mechanical lock. Obi-Wan stretched out his hand and concentrated, trying to unlock it with the Force. Ahsoka waited, shifting from foot to foot.

“Jedi,” Padme said with a sigh. She unholstered her blaster and shot out the lock. They crept inside.

 

Empty hallways of black stone. Deactivated battle droids. A single black robe draped carelessly over a wooden chair. It seems like everyone had just left. Although an evil energy permenated the space, it felt somehow distant. Like the halls had gone at least a week without a single echoing scream.

No, that wasn’t right. Someone was still here… someone whose body bowed under great pain.

“We need to go up,” Ahsoka said. “I sense Master Skywalker- I think he’s still here!”

Behind a maintenance door, they found a spiral staircase and rushed up. The room at the top of the palace… even though Ahsoka had no idea what had happened, she sensed it was some sort of laboratory. Machine parts and vials of chemicals were strewn over every stainless-steel table. Blueprints were haphazardly folded with notations in the margins. There were also some red crystals that gave Ahsoka a queasy feeling just to look at, housed in glass boxes.

And, at the end of the room-

“No,” Padme breathed, and fell to her knees.

The enormous contraption that housed Anakin Skywalker dizzied Ahsoka with its complexity. Tubes and pulsing tentacles trailed from a skull-like mask to compartments that housed what looked like slugs and snakes. Bony piping wrapped his body in a painful and constricting metal embrace. It was the sort of thing a mad artist would have drawn while hopped up on glitterstim right before shooting himself in the head.

“Oh, my Padawan,” Obi-Wan said sadly, touching the glass. “What have they done to you?”

As if the machine could sense Obi-Wan’s presence, electricity sparked down the wires, and Anakin twitched and cried out in his unconscious state.

 


	4. Mustafar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahsoka learns Jedi secrets on Mustafar as a Sith plots revenge.

It was such a shame, Palpatine had thought as he'd fled the Mustafar palace unceremoniously in the dead of night. After all the work he'd put into the Nightmare Machine... assembling the required funds through embezzlement and smugglers and a few tax havens in Wild Space, teasing out young Skywalker's weaknesses with the perfect scenario...  
Those Skywalker women. They'd ruined everything for him by refusing to die. Even if only one of them was technically a Skywalker.  
"I prefer to go by my maiden name," he mimicked, and rolled his eyes. She was the most irritating- no, they all were.  
First there was Shmi. He'd hoped the Order would want to stay uninvolved with politics more than they'd want to keep a family together, but instead they'd offered to get her off Tatooine as soon as possible. So he'd inflamed local tribal tensions in that sector, then used the fights he'd incited to justify that people from that sector should be banned from the core worlds. Instead, not only had she used a few Force tricks her son had taught her to survive a brutal attack, she'd then instigated a local slave revolt and smuggled herself off-planet in the ensuing chaos. And she'd had the nerve to tell him to back away from her son- in public, where, to keep up his image as a harmless old man, he'd been forced to obey.  
Then there was Padme. A Queen and a slave boy, Palpatine had thought. Yeah, right! He had looked forward to being there for Anakin when it all fell apart. Instead, not only had she loved him back, the Jedi had encouraged it. There was no hidden poison he could help fester, no dark secrets in which he could lurk. So he'd decided to kill her. He'd had her medical droids altered to give inaccurate information and ignore her reports of symptoms, then subtly poisoned her over a period of months. Right before her due date, she'd collapsed in agony, where medical droids had accused her of malingering. But thanks to a combination of Anakin's force healing and some Tatooine midwife witchery of his mother's, she'd pulled through. She even breastfed while giving speeches in the Senate, as if taunting his plans.  
And then there was Ahsoka. Nothing could shake her loyalty to the Jedi order or to her Master. She'd proved impossible to catch.  
  
For a long time, everything had seemed totally hopeless. Then, in an ancient temple of the Sith race, he'd discovered the secrets of the Nightmare Machine. It was a perfect blend of Sith alchemy, kyber tech, and the secrets of the natural world. Torture drugs and brain electrodes laid the subject's mind bare, exposing their weaknesses. Then, a helmet of corrupted kyber crystals, argumented with the hallucinogenic venom of animals that hypnotized their prey, allowed a talented Sith to control what the victim experienced, creating a world of dreams more real than reality itself.  
Looking through Anakin's memories, Palpatine saw how much the young man depended on the people around him. His mother's gentleness, his mentor's approval, his padawan's hope, and Padme, who was half his soul.  
What if the Jedi stripped some of these connections away from Anakin, instead of protecting them- and what if, in his desperation, he'd shattered the rest? He'd insinuated a starting scenario (the Jedi Order resents you and denies the value of attachments) and let the boy's active imagination run wild.  
The machine's instructions said that if the scenario conflicted too much with reality, the victim would break free. At first, this concerned Palpatine. But once convinced of his isolation, Anakin was incredibly malleable, willing to commit any atrocity to hold onto the few people he had left.  
Imagine yourself killing those Jedi orphans you're always doting on, Palpatine would suggest, and his imagination would justify the scenario at once.  
But he hadn't been able to insert the young twins into his mind without breaking credibility. Still, what could a couple of six-year-olds do? At last he would get rid of his worst enemies and acquire a powerful apprentice in the bargain. That was the secret of the nightmare machine: even once  they escaped,  subjects were convinced that their visions were the true reality, and would continue to dream of these alternate lives.  
He had been unable to weaken Anakin Skywalker by killing the people around him. So he'd make sure that Anakin would kill them himself.

 

It was clear that the Sith alchemy whatever-it-was would kill Anakin if outright removed with brute force. The trio moved into the lava palace temporarily.  
Padme commuted back and forth from the senate, spending every waking moment of the long voyage talking to the twins, who were staying with her parents and handmaidens on Naboo. Luke had convinced Master Yoda to give him a training saber, and was constantly asking him to spar, as they were almost the same height. Leia had graduated from picture books like Brown Bothan, Brown Bothan What Do You See to ones that didn't always have illustrations at all, and she read to her family every night. Sometimes Padme fell asleep in front of the glass-and-metal tank that held her husband, trying to draw as much strength as she could from his presence, but unable to remain awake.  
Obi-Wan poured every moment into meticulous study of the diagrams and prototypes that had been left behind, trying to figure out what the machine was and how it worked. Sometimes he would remove one piece at a time very carefully, and Anakin would stir and breathe. Three weeks in, only a handful of components remained; now Padme could fall asleep holding his hand.  
Ahsoka couldn't bear seeing her Master like that. She spent every free moment training. How long could she meditate outside before the heat broke through her mental defenses? How much molten rock could she levitate before letting it fall?  
And even though Obi-Wan insisted on sticking to training sabres when she lured him outside, Mustafar was an absolute playground for sparring.  
Lava waterfalls, sharp and slippery rocks, moderately acidic rain, carnivorous beasts, poisonous smoke? Best place to fight ever.  
Anakin had altered the practice sabers to sting when they hit. Sometimes it was a lot more fun than just scoring points on your opponents; sometimes it changed your entire strategy.  
Thirty minutes into the day's battle, Ahsoka had one stinging arm tucked behind her back. Barely managing to fend off a flurry of swooping attacks from her Grandmaster, she jumped down to a lower boulder to plan her next move.  
"You just watch. I'm going to win this time!"  
He arched one perfect eyebrow. "Really. Are you sure it would be wise to attack me from your current position?"  
"Why not? I can get to where you are with one hand behind my back- literally." To demonstrate, she Force-jumped in place, guiding her remaining saber through a graceful twirl.  
"Is that so? Try it, then. I encourage your intellectual experimentation."  
He was smiling his "this is a learning experience" smile, and the moment her feet had left the ground, Ahsoka figured she'd made a mistake, but let her momentum carry her through.  
Instead of being unable to block her powerful blow from above, he sidestepped and smacked the saber across her calves. Ahsoka fell to the ground, trying to figure out if there were any languages she could swear in without him knowing. There weren't, so she settled for the less satisfying "aaargh."  
"Breathe," he advised her gently. "Release your pain into the force."  
She did as instructed until she could fold her legs under her without crying out. He sat beside her on the rock.  
"Now, can you tell me what you did wrong?"  
"When I jumped, I introduced a new element into the fight- I opened myself up to attacks from below," Ahsoka said, eager to prove she'd learned something. "I should have waited for you to attack me, or looked for some way I could have used the environment to my advantage."  
"Excellent. That's exactly it." He helped her to her still-wobbly feet. "Within the month, you might be able to show your Master all that you've learned."  
"How come he didn't teach me about not attacking the high ground?" She complained, deactivating the training sabers as she stumbled along behind him up the rocky path.  
"Because Anakin believes that his power and technique can overcome anything; he doesn't use his environment to his advantage the way he should." He turned back to smile at her. "Tell you what- use that trick on Anakin while I'm watching, all right? I'd love to see the look on his face."  
  
"No fair, Snips!" He'd say, wincing, and she'd get to stick her tongue out at him: shouldn't have let me get the high ground!  
Soon she'd have her Master back again, and everything would be fine.


	5. A Dangerous Duel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin wakes from his coma; Ahsoka's Jedi training forces her to make an impossible choice.

At last Anakin lay on a stainless-steel table. Only the Crystal-encrusted mask clung to his face, and Obi-Wan had finally translated the instructions for removal.  
Ahsoka paced the confined space, twirling her lightsaber; Padme willed herself to be calm and still. She'd bathed and braided her hair, putting on a full face of makeup for the first time in months to hide the dark circles under her eyes, the weight she'd lost, and wore a resplendent gown that left her arms bare: Naboo lake blue, floating ruffled chiffon to contrast the harsh treatment he'd no doubt endured.  
She couldn't save him, couldn't heal him, but she could make a safe place for him to rest.  
Obi-Wan shrugged off his outer robe with classic theatricality. He removed one screw, then another, with a small sonic tool. As he lifted the helmet from Anakin's face with a hiss of pressurized air, Padme moved closer, holding her breath.  
And there he was- her husband. He looked haggard, exhausted, impossibly pale- but it was him, really him. As she reached out, his eyes opened.  
"Padme," he murmured, catching her hand. "You're just as I remember you... an angel lurking in my dreams."  
"We're going to go home to Naboo. You're safe now."  
His gaze flickered over her, seeking, suspicious; a smile twisted his face. "Safe. Am I really?"  
"Anakin," Obi-Wan began, stroking his former Padawan's hair. They were both so lucky, Padme thought, to have a friend like him.  
Anakin's gaze fixed on him; instantly his body twisted, convulsing with hatred. "You," he snarled, and his hands clenched. Obi-Wan fell to the floor, his expression a silent question even as he reddened, struggling to breathe. Anakin sprung from the table, circled him like a predator. In the corner, Ahsoka was holding her breath.  
"This is how it ends... how it always ends," he murmured. And, turning on Padme: "Liar! You brought him here to kill me. Even in dreams, you're so faithless... so beautiful."  
The tension in his body, that cold look of hatred disfiguring his face. Cold suspicion crawled over her body: was this truly the man she had married? She tried to embrace him, but he pulled away with a hiss of fury.  
"Anakin, calm down," she begged, trying to keep the growing fear from her voice. "You're going to be all right. I'm here now."  
"No," he said coldly. "I felt you die. Whatever you are, you will haunt me no further."  
His movements were too fast for Ahsoka to follow; only that something in the Force twisted, and Padme fell.  
A whimper slipped from Ahsoka's mouth. He turned on her.  
"Will you run from me, Ahsoka?" His voice was so soft, almost kind. "The way you ran from the Jedi Order- the way you ran from me when I needed you most? You trusted me the way none of them ever had. Sometimes I wonder if that trust could have saved me. But it's too late now. The last time we fought, I let you live. I won't show weakness like that again." A twitch of his hand, and suddenly one of her twin sabers was slipping from her grasp, flying towards him. He smiled. There was a terrible light in his eyes. "Now," he murmured, "run."  
She didn't need to be told twice.  
  
Ahsoka sprinted across the hardened lava, jumping from one boulder to another. Don't think. Run.  
Peace and the Force were both out of reach. She couldn't focus on anything but her fear. Only her training, her skill with the single weapon that remained to her, would save her now.

Then a thought pushed its way through her terror: remember my training! Summoning a burst of strength, she leapt onto a high outcropping. "Come get me, Skyguy," she called, faking bravery.  
A sneer disfigured his face. "That man is dead." And, just as Obi-Wan predicted, he leapt at her.  
Time seemed to slow down. She felt the rage in his eyes, saw his weapon poised for a killing blow.  
Would she have to slay her best friend to survive?  
The lava bubbled below them, glowing with its toxic heat.  
I can't do it, Ahsoka realized. I can't hurt the man who's been a father and brother and friend to me. Not even if I die for it. She prepared to defend herself against his blow from above, even as she knew she'd fail-  
Just as he landed, a blaster bolt sliced through the air and hit him in the back. He fell unconscious to the stone, chest still heaving.  
Padme leaned heavily against a tall boulder, clutching her blaster. "Set it to stun," she rasped hoarsely, before toppling forward to her knees.  
  
With Anakin sedated and securely chained, the three survivors gathered in their makeshift quarters and quietly sipped hand-blended Tatooine herbal tea.  
Obi-Wan's hands shook. He seemed older, exhausted; Ahsoka's efforts to force heal him had felt draining and difficult, like holding water in her hands. Meanwhile, Padme had refused all healing, insisting that she was perfectly fine, even though she coughed often and struggled to swallow.  
"I think I've figured out what happened," Obi-Wan said, unfolding yet another sheet of flimsiplast.  
Padme leaned forward. Red marks encircled her throat, and she rubbed at one absentmindedly. "Well?"  
"It seems that, using Sith technology, he's been implanted with an elaborate (if farfetched) set of false memories. He believes that I betrayed him and let him down. That all of us did."  
Padme's steady gaze never left his face. "And the cure?"  
"It's uncertain. But I believe the best course of action is to take him back to the Jedi Temple, where we have a room secured against uncontrolled power. We'll try to keep him sedated for all but the most necessary tests, and send in sturdy medical droids with recent backups, ones who know the risks." He laid a hand on Padme's. "Your children will have their father back. I swear it."  
She nodded. But Ahsoka wondered if she was truly convinced.


	6. The Youngling Clan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (listen. i wasn't going to post this today but this scene was the inspo for the ENTIRE FIC and i got way too excited)
> 
> When Anakin's youngest friends sneak out to visit him, Ahsoka's fears become reality.

Sors Bandeam, a seven-year-old human boy with perpetually red cheeks, had been lying on his sleeping mat, pretending to be dreaming. Nothing to see here, he thought anxiously as the babysitter droid whirred by. Everything's fine, we're all asleep.  
At last the droid left. Staying low to the ground, he crawled behind one of the sofas at the edge of the dorm room. His two best friends were already there, initiate robes over their pajamas. "I don't understand. Why won't they let us see Master Skywalker? What are we going to do?" All Obi-Wan would tell him was that Master Skywalker was very confused and couldn’t teach. Even Ahsoka, who usually revealed all the secrets of the real grownups, only said that he wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t have visitors. That had been three weeks ago. And a few days past, one of the medical droids had been carried out covered in scorch marks. Now there were guards outside Master Skywalker’s quarters.  
Jeswi Ele- also human, with messy blonde hair and a snub nose- widened her eyes. "What? I can't understand you." She always made fun of his heavy Core accent.  
Shia Letap (taller, darker, almost eight) stuck out her tongue and put her arm around the younger boy. "Now isn't the time, Jes. We have to figure out what to do. We need to make a plan."  
"Well, do you have a plan?"  
"If there are less than three guards, you lure them away while me and Sors pick the lock. If there's more..."  
"We pull the fire alarm." Jeswi finished.  
"Only if we don't get in trouble," Sors said, fidgeting.  
Shia patted his arm. "Don't worry. Like Master Skywalker said about freeing slaves-"  
"-you only get in trouble if you get caught!" Jeswi finished, a grin lighting her face.  
  
  
Normally, Force-sensitive younglings lived with their parents one month out of every three between the ages of eight and thirteen. (Before eight, you just came for summer camp.)  
But Clan Starbird was special. They were the six and seven and eight year olds who'd been at the temple since they could remember, the nine-year-olds who got to spend hours burrowing through the Archives and watching holofilms in the Council chambers when all the other children had gone home.  
Bear Clan was Yoda's; they had the most opportunities to help with the running of the Temple, to sit in and see how decisions were made. They even got to sit on the Youngling Council and decide what flavor of ice cream the next party would have. Squall Clan got to learn flips and tumbling and spend as long as they wanted on the practice course, and they were always the first to get training lightsabers.  
Clan Starbird had adventures.  
“Today, my good friend Dorme is going to teach you how to be bodyguards.”  
“Want to learn how to hack that nurse droid?”  
“I'm supposed to read you this book on common edible plants... unless you'd rather go camping and make a soup with them over a fire! And then, if you're up for it... blue smores.”  
“Surprise! We're going to learn how to swim... on the beach on Naboo.”  
“Who wants to learn some of the tricks I used when I was freeing slaves back on Tatooine? I think every youngling should know how to pick a few locks. Also disable bombs. Of course, you’re not going to have to disable the bombs while cutting them out of yourself, which is an essential Tatooine skill, but it’s a good start!”  
  
Ordinary younglings had to follow rules. But they weren't just any younglings- they were Clan Starbird, kids trained in the spying and sneaking techniques of a hundred worlds.  
  
Jeswi and Sors hid behind the bushes near the medical center. Two older Padawans stood guard outside.  
Suddenly a scream ripped through the night.  
"Help! Somebody help me!"  
That was Shia. At once the guards ran off to help her. The plan was for her to climb a tree as soon as they came looking for her, then come back while the guards were still searching.  
Meanwhile, Jeswi and Sors picked the lock.  
"Okay," Shia whispered, running back. "Coast is clear. Let's go!"  
  
Master Skywalker was sleeping in a hospital bed. Everything smelled like disinfectant and flea soap. His face looked hollow and carved out, his hair was patchy, and he was covered in wires and tubes.  
For a moment Shia stopped in the doorway.  
If something doesn't feel right, run, her mother had always told her, kissing her hair. The day she'd seen fire on the way home from school, the Force had told her to follow that advice, and she'd ran for days.  
The Force felt wrong and twisty in the same way now. A black hole at the bottom of her stomach. "Maybe we should go back..."  
"Don't be a baby, Shia," Jeswi whispered, nudging her forward.  
Sors had already ran in. He sat on the edge of the bed. "Master Skywalker, it's us! From Firebird Clan. Are you okay?"  
Shia held her breath. Nothing to be scared of, she told herself. It's just Master Skywalker.  
His eyes opened, and his hand twitched like he was activating a lightsaber. "You... I remember you. The first one I killed. You thought I was there to protect you, to fight off the clone troopers that menaced you in the night... and when I ignited my lightsaber, you still didn't understand I was there to slaughter you all. The little boy with the Core accent- the first to die."  
  
_“Master Skywalker, what are we going to do?”  
A cold look in his eyes. But Jedi were supposed to protect younglings, especially this Jedi. He was powerful enough to save them all...  
“Master Skywalker?”  
His lightsaber snapped to life, he twirled his wrist-  
Pain, unimaginable and all-encompassing. Sors fell to the ground in a pool of blood: uncomprehending, small, and still.  
_  
In the hospital room, Sors' mouth worked soundlessly. He clutched at his chest, unsure if he still lived, sure only of how badly he'd been hurt.  
If something doesn't feel right, run... Shia grabbed Jeswi's hand, but the Force stopped her.  
“And you. The little one with the dark, dark eyes. You went for the door. I let you. Because I wanted to show the rest of them that it would be worse if they tried to run.”  
  
_I'm small, Shia thought, slipping through the door. I can evade the troopers, get to a ship-_  
Then the door slid shut, pinning her in between its bulk and the wall. She tried to breathe, but couldn't fill her lungs.  
“Pathetic,” the man who was no longer a Jedi snarled, and slowly moved his hand. The door moved as well, crushing her tiny body inch by inch.  
Her ribs snapped one by one, fragments of bone thrusting through her lungs. Every time she tried to breathe, it felt like Force lightning, like watching her home burn down. The world went black.  
When Vader next opened the door, her body would fall.

  
"This isn't funny, Master Skywalker! If this is a test, we're not going to pass it- whatever you did, they’re hurting! Stop it right now!" Jeswi yelled, her fists clenching. She didn't understand what had happened. Only that he'd murmured something to her friends, and they'd collapsed- Sors shaking, Shia gasping for air. And Firebird Clan fought for their own.  
His cold eyes fixed on her as if she was an insect he wanted to squish. “You... of course I remember you. With your messy hair and your robe tied wrong. The only one out of all those scared kids who put up a fight, as pathetic as it was.”

  
_Sors fallen. Shia crushed slowly. Her friends. She'd made fun of them and called them babies, but they were her friends. No one was allowed to hurt them but her._  
For a moment, Jeswi felt absolutely nothing. She was as empty as a sky without stars. Then rage rushed in. Whatever happened, she had to avenge her friends! The Force leapt to her control, a rush of power she'd never felt before, and a training saber burst through a locked cabinet and flew into her hand. She rushed towards the not-Jedi, fearless, furious-  
"Shame," Vader said. "You might have been a good Sith," and parried her ineffective blow-  
She was dead before her training saber even hit the ground.  
  
Ahsoka had snapped awake from an uneasy nap just after sunset, one thought reverberating in her mind: Firebird Clan. Go there. Now.  
A droid wouldn't have noticed that three bunks were stuffed with blankets, a heating pad jammed inside to provide the requisite infrared signatures- but the heating pad in the bedroll was a classic handmaiden trick.  
With a sinking heart, she knew they were doing the exact thing that she and master Yoda had told them to under no circumstances do.  
Without Force binders, he had come close to killing his own wife. With them, he’d destroyed a succession of hapless medical droids. What would he do to the younglings?  
Swearing under her breath, she ignited her lightsabers and burst into a run.  
  
The door to his room was open, the guards long gone. Inside, Ahsoka found what she had feared: Two younglings frozen with terror, one gasping for air as pain radiated into the Force, and Anakin testing his cuffs.  
"Sleep," she commanded, letting the Force weight her voice.  
"You will not command me," he snarled. It reminded her of the first time she’d ever had to kill a womp rat. She’d struck a single blow and panicked, dodging the animal’s flailing limbs, its snapping teeth. It had attacked again and again, dragging its bleeding body. Daring her to end its suffering.

In the end, Anakin had needed to step in and finish the job; after that day, all her kills had been clean. The shadow of the choice she’d avoided on Mustafar lurked in her mind.   
"Sleep," Ahsoka repeated, her voice shaking with effort. This time he gave in.  
Ahsoka sheathed her twin weapons and scooped Shia up in her arms. "Jeswi? Can you walk? We need to get her outside."  
"I think so," she whispered.  
Sors sat motionless, but obeyed when Ahsoka nudged him to his feet. They made it outside; Ahsoka laid Shia down on the cool grass, while a trembling Jeswi snuggled into her side, and Sors just stared at nothing.  
Shia's dark eyes were filled with panic.  
"I've got you. You're going to be all right." She spread her hands over Shia's energy field, hoping he hadn’t hurt her too badly.  
Even though Shia was physically unharmed, her mind was convinced she had cracked ribs and a punctured lung, and it overruled her muscles. Ahsoka sent her waves of calm energy until her tense body relaxed and she began to breathe normally.  
"Shi?" Jeswi whispered, squeezing her friend's hand.  
"Yeah?" Her voice was even weaker.  
"I'm sorry I called you a baby, I didn't mean it-"  
At the same time, Shia scrambled from the grass and caught her in a hug. "I'm sorry I tried to run away- I should never have left you, never ever-"  
With a choked sob, Dors flopped sideways and flung his arms around his friends, who clung to him just as fervently.  
"You're okay," Ahsoka murmured, gathering them into her lap and rubbing their backs. "You're all okay."

Later that night, when the exhausted trio had finally slumped into sleep curled in one bedroll, Ahsoka sat up at the window, nursing a mug of hot tea.   
If Anakin could spread his visions to other minds like this... he was getting worse, the new personality becoming stronger. What if there was no way to get her Master back?  
What if they had to kill the monster he'd become?


	7. Skywalkers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke risks everything to save his father's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY FINISHED. SUCK IT, MY HEART CONDITION

They weren’t allowed to see Dad, and no one would tell the twins why. He kept reaching for his mother’s mind, but she was good at shielding. Not good enough where she knew he was trying to read her, but he only got scraps of emotions. Fear and pain and loss that sent him running for his sister to make sure she was okay.   
“I’ve been having the worst dreams,” Leia whispered one afternoon when the adults weren’t looking. “Like. I’m Dad, and I’m trapped in a big cage with no light, burned all over. And it sounds like a broken droid when I breathe.”  
“Like a med pod or bacta?”  
“Nothing like it. Cause those make you stop hurting. This made him hurt worse.”  
The Force could heal any injuries. Adults worried about opening their minds, tried to make all sorts of rules and restrictions around the Force’s power. Luke and his sister just reached for it and made things happen.  
Leia nodded, effortlessly switching their conversation from thoughtimage to spoken word. “So we’ll go to him. Heal him.”   
“We can’t both go. One of us has gotta be a distraction.”  
“Me,” Leia said at once.  
The long journey ahead, the possibility he might not succeed, filled Luke with worry. “How come?”  
“Cause I’m a billion times better liar.”  
She was right. And even if he was scared, Dad needed him. 

The next night, Leia locked herself in the walk-in freezer and went into a healing trance, neatly faking her own death. Of course, the ruse would only last for a half-hour once they got her warmed up, but it was more than enough time for Luke to hack one of Dad's old X-Wings, disable the minders, and get offplanet.   
The Jedi guarding his dad's hospital room were big and strong. "Hey, Luke," one of them said, crouching down. "What are you doing here?"  
Breathe in the Force, breathe out fear… “Nothing,” he said slowly.  
The woman’s forehead got worry-wrinkly. “Luke, I think maybe we should take you home-“  
He didn’t have time for this.  
“I think you want to TAKE A NAP.” And he pushed with his thoughts as hard as he could, toppling her shields like a sandcastle or a block tower. The other Jedi fell over, too.   
It was the kind of brain sledgehammer that made Dad shake his head and go Real Sloppy, Kiddo, I Know You Can Do Better. But he didn’t have time for anything else. Since the door wasn’t locked, he ran right in- and stopped short.  
Dad looked awful. His face was all thin and pale and scruffy, and he was wired up to a bunch of different machines.   
“Wake up,” Luke whispered, poking him. Not even a twitch.   
Darkness all around him, thick like smoke. Cold metal and the smell of blood.   
Anger. But not anger at anyone else. Anger at himself, like a million knives stabbing inwards, like saber blades burning laser hot. Dad’s mind was a place, and it was a desert where the winds screamed and the sand cut and nothing could live.   
Luke managed to collect himself, sending a question towards the tornado of knives that loomed on the horizon: why are you angry?  
The answer rolled out raincloud-heavy with sorrow: I did so many bad things. I am a terrible person. Everything I ever loved, everything and everyone that ever loved me, I failed and crushed and ripped apart.  
The Light would never take me back. It’s a good thing I don’t want to try.   
“LIAR,” Luke screamed. A sandstorm lashed his face, but he planted his feet. “Dad? I know who you are. Whatever the Sith did to you, whatever they told you, you’ve always been a good person. Grandma sees the light in you. So does Mom. And so do I.” He tried to send memories of his father’s stories. Freeing slaves on Tatooine when he’d only been a little older than Luke. Risking his life again and again to drive back the Sith’s army. The way he always had a smile or a kind word-  
Instead of a response, Luke found himself out of his father’s mind and back in his own body, feeling confused.  
(Although he didn’t know it, Vader’s dream was changing, two bright spots of light emerging amongst the darkness. His twins, the children he’d thought lost. Standing against the darkness his master tried to create, thwarting the Empire at every turn. A tiny spitfire with a stubborn chin. A boy with an ever-present smile. They weren’t just his enemies- they were his. And in his shattered mind, an emotion besides hate took root.)  
Someone was coming into the room. A Jedi? No. They smelled wrong to his mind-senses. Like a podracer crash, all scorched metal and choking chemical smoke. Luke, hiding behind a curtain, watched the figure lift his cloak. It was Palpatine- but he looked wrong. Evil.   
Dad and Mom had said the Sith and their followers had gone away. Been killed or stopped being bad guys. But they were wrong. Because the Sith speaking in a low, quiet voice to his father, touching his forehead and unhooking the machines, felt more Force-powerful than any bad guy Luke had ever known.   
***  
“Vader. Awake and come with me,” his master said, and Darth Vader awoke.   
His body felt different. Breath silent, limbs sturdy and quick; dizziness swamped him when he stood, but he shook it off. Was he Anakin again? No. That idealistic young fool was dead. There was only the darkness now.   
“What happened?”  
Palpatine didn’t answer. “What was the last thing you remember?”  
“I… don’t.”  
“No matter. You are confused. But soon we will have the entire galaxy under our dominion.”  
A gasp from the corner. Someone had concealed their self behind the room’s curtains! With a thought, Vader pulled the spy out into the open. For a moment he thought he was looking at himself as a child. No. He had no childhood; he’d been born in the fires of Mustafar.   
“Dad. Dad, it’s me, Luke!” the boy said.   
Luke Skywalker. A pilot with the Resistance. An irritating Force-Sensitive fly in his side. No, that wasn’t right… was Luke his son, the one who would rule with him? No- he could never disobey his master, his master was all he had left- he’d seen Padme die and the twins with her-  
Head spinning, fighting for breath, he struggled to keep standing.   
“Fine,” Palpatine snarled, drawing his lightsaber. “I will kill him myself. You may merely watch.”  
If he had been ruling over the galaxy at his all-knowing master’s side for so many years, why was Luke appearing as such a young boy? A boy like he himself had been with the light in his eyes.   
Unarmed, Luke used the Force to dodge and evade, tumbling through the Sith Lord’s legs. But he was young and tired quickly, backed into a corner. Palpatine loomed over him, savoring his victory. Why didn’t Vader savor this as well?   
“Dad,” the boy said, his voice breaking. “You don’t belong to the Darkness! Remember that- help me!”  
Then everything came back to him.   
The ceremony on the grounds of the Jedi Temple, how he'd ugly-cried through the entire Tatooine wedding liturgy. The pride when he learned he was going to be a father, and the sheer terror of watching Padme struggle for her life.   
Holding his children in his arms for the first time.   
Palpatine had ran the simulation over and over again. Until his mind shattered. Until reality broke. But nothing could ever erase the love he felt for Luke and Leia. They were his light.  
"Allow me," Anakin said, striding forward in a way that mimicked the lurching, heavy walk of his nightmare self. His 'master' didn't notice that anything had changed.   
Palpatine may have been a strong Sith Lord pretending to be a harmless reactionary curmudgeon. But fuck it, he was still an old man. Eschewing all Force tricks, Anakin pulled the unexpected move of merely kicking him until he was down, and then kicking him until he stayed down.   
"Dad?" Luke said, quietly. "It's really you, right?"  
"It's me," he said, leaning down to ruffle his hair, hardly daring to touch the fragile perfect transcendent thing that was his own son. "Hey, you've gotten bigger! You been eating your vegetables?"  
He beamed.   
Then the door slid open, revealing Ahsoka.   
Step away from the boy. Tears glittered in her eyes; her head-tails twitched with emotion. “I won't hesitate to put you down like the Sith scum you are, Darth Vader.”  
He tried not to laugh; it was like watching R2D2 try to be intimidating. “Good speech, Snips. Which holo did you copy it from?”  
The lightsabers fell from her hands as she hurled herself towards him to wrap him in an enormous hug.   
"I thought I'd have to kill you," she was sobbing into his chest.   
Clever girl, he thought, she would have made it quick and painless. I taught her that much, at least. He just hugged her back. "I know."


End file.
